Joshua Norton, Street Fighter?

November 20, 2025 / John Lumea

In early 1850, Joshua Norton was brought before San Francisco Alcalde John W. Geary on charge of assault — and was found guilty and fined.

That’s how a “Pioneer” eyewitness remembered it in 1887, in the pages of The Overland Monthly.

Corroborating — preferably contemporaneous — evidence would be needed in order to give this story full credence. But, IF the story is true, it could be seen as providing an early anchor and baseline for later documented reports that Emperor Norton could be prone to having a short fuse, if he felt he was being disrespected.

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categories / Research, Original sources
tags / Joshua Norton, assault, McKinley, Johnson, McKinley Johnson & Co., John W. Geary, alcalde, memory, Henry B. Livingston, Daily Alta California, Overland Monthly, letter to the editor, Society of California Pioneers, 1850, 1887

Joshua Norton, Pioneer

August 08, 2023 / John Lumea

In Colville’s San Francisco directory of 1856, Joshua Norton listed his “office” address as Pioneer Hall — the Society of California Pioneers’ headquarters and clubhouse on Portsmouth Square, San Francisco.

Joshua declared bankruptcy in 1856, so his living arrangements might have been unstable. But, he was affiliated with a Masonic lodge during this period — while he was not a member of the Pioneers.

So why did he list himself at Pioneer Hall rather than Masonic Hall (on Montgomery Street)?

Here’s a closer look at this episode, in which — apparently — Joshua Norton and the Pioneers were drawn into one anothers’ orbits and revealed things about one another in the process.

Includes a rarely seen 1861 photograph of Pioneer Hall after the Society had added “Pioneers” signage to the top of the building.

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categories / Research, Places, Original sources
tags / Society of California Pioneers, Pioneer Hall, Portsmouth Square, James Lick, Samuel Colville, address, directory, photograph, Overland Monthly, George R. Fardon, 1850, 1855, 1856, 1857, 1858, 1862, 1863

What Did Andrew Smith Hallidie Know About Joshua Norton's Original Funding?

September 29, 2020 / John Lumea

The conventional “wisdom” is that Joshua Norton arrived in San Francisco in 1849 with a $40,000 bequest from the estate of his father, John Norton, who had died in 1848.

But, if Norton arrived with $40,000, he almost certainly didn’t get it from his father — who had died insolvent and broke.

So, what was the source of Joshua Norton’s original funding — $40,000 or otherwise?

Andrew Smith Hallidie, the “father of the cable car,” knew Joshua Norton as Emperor — and probably before that as well.

In 1888, Hallidie published an article suggesting that Norton had arrived in San Francisco as a “representative and confidant” of English backers.

This is quite different from the account one often hears.

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categories / Research, Original sources, Open Questions
tags / Andrew Smith Hallidie, Overland Monthly, John Norton, South America, Rio de Janeiro, Valparaiso, 1888

Emperor Norton at Ease

July 08, 2015 / John Lumea

One of the most arresting and enigmatic images of Emperor Norton is an 1870s watercolor of him — in street clothes and smoking a pipe — that hung for more than 30 years in the library of the Bohemian Club, in San Francisco. No doubt known by the Emperor himself during his lifetime, this painting later made its way into the Overland Monthly — thanks, in part, to a member of Robert Louis Stevenson's extended family.

Here's the story of this wonderful portrait.

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categories / Original sources, Histories, Research
tags / paintings, portraits, Virgil Williams, Bohemian Club, Robert Louis Stevenson, Fanny Osbourne, Isobel Osbourne Field, Joseph Dwight Strong, Nathan Bixby Strong, Bolton & Strong, Overland Monthly, Bret Harte, art, 1870s, 1892

The Emperor Norton Trust

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Joshua Norton, Street Fighter?

Joshua Norton, Pioneer

What Did Andrew Smith Hallidie Know About Joshua Norton's Original Funding?

Emperor Norton at Ease